Contact with grandparents and young people's explicit and implicit attitudes toward older adults.

BACKGROUND: Given the dramatic rise in population aging and widespread negative attitudes toward older people, it is necessary to understand the factors that affect age-related attitudes among young people in order to improve intergenerational solidarity and reduce ageism. The current study examined young people's contact with their grandparents and attitudes toward older people on both explicit and implicit levels. METHOD: The sample included 146 Chinese college students (Mage = 21.50 yrs, SD = 2.23, 101 females). Participants completed a questionnaire concerning contact with their grandparents(contact quantity and contact quality), perceived typicality of their grandparents, intergroup anxiety, inclusion of other in the self, and explicit attitudes toward older people (aged 65 years or older) in general. Participants were also invited to complete a single-category implicit association test (SC-IAT) to assess their implicit attitudes toward older people. RESULTS: The findings indicated that both quantity and quality of contact with grandparents predicted better explicit attitudes toward older people, and contact effects were stronger when one's grandparents were perceived as being typical of older adults. Contact quantity (not quality) was associated with more favorable implicit attitudes only when one's grandparents were perceived as highly typical older adults. Contact effects on explicit attitudes were mediated by intergroup anxiety and inclusion of other in the self. CONCLUSION: Our findings on the positive effects of contact with grandparents underscore the importance of promoting intergenerational contact within the family as a starting point to reduce prejudice toward older adults in age-segregated modern societies. Current results also provide insights on how to extend the benefits of grandparent-grandchild contact outside the family by promoting the perceived typicality of one's grandparents.

Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults' Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage.

After four decades of China's family planning policy, the shrinking family size and increasing life expectancy pose special challenges for the one-child generation in terms of providing care for aging parents. The current study explored young adults' responses to such pressure by examining their concerns about elder care, attitudes toward nursing homes, and living arrangement after marriage in a sample of 473 Chinese working young adults from six cities in China (46.9% males, Mage = 25.1 years, 47.8% only children). Results showed that although most of the young adults reported to have thought about the issue of parents' elder care, the majority did not worry a lot about it. Only children expressed similar levels of worrying as those with siblings did. However, educational level, rather than sibling status, was systematically related to concerns about parents' elder care and attitudes toward nursing homes. People with higher education tended to worry less about elder care, and were less likely to consider placing parents in nursing homes as a violation of filial piety. Analyses of the married sub-sample (n = 140) revealed that only children were more likely to co-reside with parents after marriage than those with siblings. And the main reason for co-residence was that the younger generation needed their parents' help for childcare, rather than to better take care of their parents. Implications for parents' elder care among Chinese only children were discussed.